


Heroes Never Die

by unto_the_aether



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, DreamSMP, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Blood, Canon Divergence, Chronic Pain, Denial, Dissociation, Exiled TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Gen, Ghost TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Memory Loss, Post-Exile, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Ranboo-Tommy friendship, Second Exile, Unreliable Narrator, ghostinnit, partial hearing loss, sbi as found family to varying degrees
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29801325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unto_the_aether/pseuds/unto_the_aether
Summary: Tommy wakes up in a place he doesn't recognise. He has wounds that won't stop bleeding, a body that does and feels things that make no sense to him, and - according to everyone he meets - nowhere to go.If only he could remember what he did to deserve this...(At least he's still alive.)
Relationships: Ranboo & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 195





	1. Reprise

**Author's Note:**

> So... canon, huh? I outlined and wrote this before March 1st, precisely *because* I did not anticipate certain events at all. So, here: have some post-exile arc anti-catharsis, I guess.

_... hurts..._

Something is ringing. It's faint, fading in and out, but the high drone pounds at his head something awful on top of the burning cold. It feels like someone took an anvil to his head, and then some.

_... cold-_

It's so cold... So, so _fucking_ cold. Within seconds of gaining a sliver of conscience, he goes from stiff as a corpse to trembling uncontrollably. His breath comes in tiny ragged gasps, and when his eyes finally snap open, those breaths are coalescing in puffs of mist barely above the white ground.

_Snow?_

The world, sideways, focuses into snow and trees. It doesn't mean anything yet. Feeling comes before processing. It's ice on his skin - his clothes literally soaked and then frozen, cracking as he barely manages to shift before _it_ kicks in.

(And then it kicks in.)

All of a sudden, his entire body sings with a harmony of dull aches and papercut stings and sores and red-hot itches that he wants to rub raw into the snow despite the bite of its cold. Against the same cold that knifes into every inch of his skin, as exposed as if it were bare. Everything hurts-hurts so much-

And when he writhes, he _screams_. Everything is agony. Even his throat, as a guttural wail tears from it. The pain forces him sharp through conscience and nearly straight into astral projection, but there's not enough clarity left over to remember that a Big Man doesn't cry, so he sobs: fat tears rolling down his face over and over as he gasps thinly and grinds his teeth.

Somehow, amidst a haze of pain and _cold-sofuckingcold--_ he realises faintly that he's wearing an unfamiliar shirt. Red. All of his shirts are red and white, but this one is just red.

 _Red._ Like the tint of the snow he's lying half-submerged in. Snow...?

... he's not wearing a red shirt.

_Move._

Frostbitten fingers scramble to find purchase in the source of their pain. He plunges his hands into bloodstained snow and screams until he’s on his feet. For a moment, he’s at a stalemate as to whether he should cut the strings and plunge back into darkness, or…

_Breathe?_

His breaths are shallow in his chest and he’s certain that he’s running on borrowed time. Despite the fog in his mind, TommyInnit knows that he was lucky to even wake up when he did.

He has to get out of the cold.

(And then he can start to process being there in the first place.)

For what feels like kilometres, the world is a record spinning on loop. Snow, trees. Spruce, ice. A walking — (barely) — pincushion that slowly numbs _._ It’s not the pain itself that numbs, but rather his registration of any feeling at all – drifting into the blank of the snow, step and step over…

"… Tommy?”

“Tommy! Can you hear me?”

There’s a sound in one ear but not the other. His neck is too stiff to turn to that side. There’s ash in the throat he had screamed hoarse.

“Tommy— you’re… you’re-” Tommy doesn’t have to turn, as a figure suddenly pops into his vision. There’s a garbled sound that’s not all human – enough that he almost reaches for a sword he doesn’t have, but he’s too slow and they’re clutching his shoulders.

It’s probably meant to be a grounding gesture, but somehow, this is worse. Their grip loosens when he shudders so violently that it’s debatable whether he might shudder into a full-blown seizure. When the person(?) lets go of him, he nearly doubles over, seeing green. _(Green?)_

“Tommy!”

He makes to stand again, looks dead into the mismatched eyes of an absurdly tall stranger, and collapses.

* * *

Because he’s a big man and not some pussy who loses his last life to some dumb snow — _because he’s not finished until POG2020 wins the elections; or until he gets his Cat back from Skeppy; or until he can sit beside Tubbo and listen to it once again, just the two of them_ — that’s not the last time Tommy ‘Big T’ Innit wakes up.

Everything still hurts, but the ringing in one ear is quieter and he’s swathed in blankets and bandages, not snow and dirt. He vaguely remembers seeing some funky-looking guy before he passed out, so maybe that’s who brought him here. That is, wherever ‘here’ actually is. For all he knows, he could have been kidnapped by some surprise political opponent.

_… the Election?_

“You’re awake!”

Tommy looks to the side that the exclamation comes from, but is met with only a bare wooden wall. When he realises that the speaker is on the opposite side of the room, his brow furrows and he’s lost for a moment. _Strange._

What’s really strange is this guy’s face, now that he’s conscious enough to stare and make potentially rude judgements. One green eye and one red eye, and his skin(?) itself is coloured like a chessboard. He’s as tall as the ceiling (taller?). He looks out of place, wearing a suit.

“… Are you working for Schlatt?” he settles on, after almost a minute.

“Who?”

“JSchlatt? Drunk bitch running against me ‘n Wilbur in the election? Obviously going to lose to the awesomeness that is POG2020?” Tommy grins, but the pride begins to slip when something clicks. “Hey, what actually happened on Election Day? I remember going to sleep the day before, and then… How did I end up here?”

Tommy’s face falls. “I can’t remember anything,” he grumbles, “and everything ‘urts.”

The stranger looks just as confused as him, if that’s even possible. “I… I have no clue about anything you just said. And isn’t Wilbur…?”

_My left ear is…?_

“Wilbur what? You really don’t know either, huh?” He scratches the back of his neck. His back twinges in a way that makes him wish he had just left the itch to annoy him. “I can’t remember anything, and I just woke up in some snowy place all bleeding an’ shit… S’pose I should thank you for helping me back there. Who are you, anyway?”

“Who am I…?” Wow, this guy really is confused. “I’m Ranboo, Tommy. We… we robbed George’s house together, right? I know I forget things, but I- I don’t _misremember_ , surely…”

“You robbed Gogy with me? Big Man, you must be my next best friend, then – after Tubbo, of course.” He laughs. “How could I ever forget doing something like that? Mmmn… I wish I could remember, if only for that eh, Ranboob?”

“… Please don’t call me that.”

 _Why does that expression feel familiar?_ Perhaps they really had met before.

“Ranboob!” he crows.

Ranboo takes a deep breath, and a deeper sigh. “I don’t know how you got…” he waves his hands about, “Wherever, but this village was nearby and I didn't think I could take you anywhere else considering the exile. Do you really have no clue why you were bleeding so much? I had to trade for so many bandages…”

So there really was a lot of blood… Tommy’s voice is quiet, this time. “I dunno, Big Man,” he sighs, “I really don’t know nothin’…”

Tommy wonders whether he might have had to run from someone. Sabotage? A bad result? And this Ranboob said he knew nothing, but what was that about ‘exile’?

He wants to think that he’d be safe with the person who literally just saved his life, but something in his stomach turns at a thought (which one?). And how could he have made friends with some guy and pranked George with him in the time between the election mystery and… this?

_(How could he have recently met Tommy yet have never heard about the election?)_

He’s broken out of such uncharacteristically _thoughtful_ thoughts when Ranboo speaks up again. “I… I have memory problems too, and… I forget everything that I don’t write down. Sometimes, I worry that I might even forget who my friends are…” Ranboo whispers the last part. He sounds so lost that Tommy almost feels bad for doubting him, until he remembers that he’s _the_ TommyInnit and he doesn’t feel bad about anything at all, well, ever.

“Anyway,” Ranboo clears his throat. There’s a strange buzzing sound as he does so. It reminds Tommy of the endermen that this guy is surely as tall as. “I’m not sure I can help you with much… But I think I was on my way to visit someone, as there’s an address is written on my hand, so maybe they might remember more than I do?”

“Okay.”

Tommy figures that he might as well follow the big guy. After all, he has no clue where the fuck he is, his inventory bag holds jackshit, and there’s a fair chance that he’s on the run from someone who wants him dead and nearly succeeded.

There has to be a _‘someone’_ , because there’s like, a zero percent chance that someone as cool as him just got ambushed by low level monsters and almost died because of it. And snow. Imagine losing to the fucking _weather_ —he thinks that might be the biggest ‘L’ anyone could possibly take.

So, his new friend Ranboo can at least act as his bodyguard, or some shit.

* * *

Despite the climate of the tundra, Technoblade has to wipe sweat from his brow. He finishes chopping firewood just in time to see the sky starting into pink overhead.

Just in time to make his move.

He’s out by the scene that caught his attention that morning – having headed out to investigate the disturbance so close to his property, so soon after they came for him before. There’s a lot of blood in the snow, so it _is_ recent to some extent, but any trails or footprints are gone, so whatever bled out here must have gotten away hours before.

The screaming that he heard earlier? He never fancied himself much of a detective, but it was definitely related. Unlike how he had initially excused it to Chat, the noise no longer seems to have simply been a fox, spooked. A disturbed, raw noise that had hyped the voices up enough that their thrill of it had only died down when he told them that the potions he had been staving off sleep since yesterday to brew were for.

It did give him pause when he first stopped to stare at the scene. After all...

_That’s a lot of blood._

More than should be even possible to come from one body, all soaked into one spot to the extent that even a fresh coating of snow didn’t lighten it the stain in the slightest.

Several people…? The blood, at least, cannot be from the scuffle that marked an execution hanging as heavy over him as that bloody anvil _that threatens to crush him anytime he closes his eyes_ _or starts to relax_ —because there had been a blizzard after that day, so there would be no trace left at all if it were the case.

**_BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD!!! Blood for the Blood God? blood for the blood god! who died?? Idk??? BLOODBLOODBLOOD someone dead POGGGG_ **

The screaming had been too distant to identify who, and to be honest? Techno didn’t particularly care, either. Chat could go run themselves a field day over it, and he still wouldn’t care. There were a very small number of people for whom bleeding out near his house might have vaguely concerned him, but as far as he saw it, it was too unlikely to be any of them. No.

Either way, he has pressing matters to attend to tonight, and important crimes to commit. So he chucks the logs into their place, sets ablaze the heating for when he returns—for when _they_ return—and leaves through the backdoor.

_I’m coming, Phil._


	2. Recognition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 13/03: Pre-lore rewrite in the paragraphs where Tommy reminisces about life on SMP Earth. Now with more mentions of brunch, strawberry donuts (with sprinkles), and temporary world domination.

Tommy’s chatter falls flat as soon as they enter snow-capped woodlands. He can’t rally the urge to make any noise at all in protest of the silence when the ringing in his right ear decides to turn the hell up, like two communicators intentionally brought too close. He sees a lot of snow, and the snow returns his blank gaze. It sparkles, but he can’t bring himself back to blink.

His head is throbbing. _Cold,_ but something on it feels warm. The pulse of blood beating louder than footsteps? It’s so, _so_ very cold.

Tommy sees so much white that sometimes it flashes other colours. Red and green. Even in this trance state, the colours all leave him uneasy. Green, red and white. His neck aches. _Green. White and red._

Blue has a far kinder pull to it, so he wishes it were that instead. He doesn’t wonder why his thoughts are in such a strange way, because he’s barely able to think in the first place. There’s a lot of static-y stuff, and he still hasn’t blinked yet.

In the end, the address takes them to a homely winter cabin.

As soon as there’s warm light and wooden planks in his vision, the pain in his eyes sharpens suddenly, and it’s needles and knives rather than the dull weight that had been burdening them until this second. But somehow, it’s indescribably better, as the cold haze lifts from his mind and he’s able to feel himself ‘n shit again. He wants to shout something— _anything_ —so he does:

“PRIME!”

Tommy stops, takes a deep breath, and just yells from his throat. If only to prove that he can. Because what the _fuck_ was that just now? _What the fuck._

Ahead of him, Ranboo visibly jumps. The sight is funny in its cartoonish nature – as the black-and-white tail that Tommy hadn’t even noticed before stiffens with him, and he half expects to hear a cat yowling. Instead, there’s a low warble, and from the glimpse of a side profile, he swears that he sees the guy’s mouth do some freaky unhinge-jaw shit.

“What was that about?” Ranboo has the nerve to ask _him._

“Yeah, what was THAT, bitch?” Tommy retorts, and then his usual word-vomit is flowing freely again. “Did you just…? How did you do that? Like, your mouth just… Are you an enderman or something? Part-enderman? That was fucking cool! If I could do that then I would try to eat a whole pizza in one bite, and it would be epic.”

He has to take a massive breath after that. It feels good.

Ranboo just laughs. That’s how Tommy knows that the two of them must be in that stage of acquaintance where Ranboo’s already gotten past the initial ‘finding him annoying’. Or, at least far enough through that stage that he was willing to stick around anyway.

“Yeah,” Ranboo nods. “Half-enderman, I’m pretty sure. No clue where the other half comes from.”

“Awesome. Anyway, whose place is this?” Tommy has never been this far away from L’Manberg before, and he can’t see any signs of civilisation in any direction, so whoever lives there is probably a bit of a loner.

It looks warm. There’s smoke coming from the chimney, and he can imagine crowding as close to the fire as possible. Maybe whoever lives there will let him stand there for a while? Hah. Who is he kidding – he’ll just barge straight past as soon they open the door, permission be damned. No big deal, eh?

“I think it belongs to-”

“Actually, it should be a surprise. It’s gonna be a surprise. I’m going to knock, and then we’ll see who answers the door, and if I don’t like them then I’ll punch them in the face. Not if it’s a woman though, because I like girls too much to punch one in the face. And they scare me, a bit.”

Ranboo laughs even harder this time. “Then I’ll make sure to stand back.”

“Pussy.”

“I just value my life, thank you very much. Aren’t you on your final one?”

Tommy puffs his chest out. “That’s how you know I’m not a pussy.”

And so he knocks on the door. While he waits, he rubs his eyelids hard. Then he does it again. They’re a bit sore now, and there are still white spots whenever he blinks. He never wants to see another speck of snow ever again. He would put it right next to blackstone and small enclosed spaces on a list entitled ‘TommyInnit's Least Favourite Things Ever’.

By the time an entire minute has passed, Tommy has already formed his judgement that whoever lives here must be a right selfish prick with how long they’re leaving him hanging. Seriously.

“I bet whoever lives here is American,” he announces.

He must be correct, because Ranboo sounds somewhat surprised. “How did you figure that one out?”

“‘Cause I’m so great – that’s how.”

Tommy squats down and presses his face to the door. Through the keyhole, he can see that the lights are on and the fireplace is crackling, but there’s not a figure in sight. He raises a hand to knock harder this time, but something catches his eye before his fist catches the wood.

His hand loosens and drops to his side, and for a moment, he has to blink a few times to convince himself that he’s not seeing things. _Holy shit._ _Holy shit._

“What the fuck?” he breathes, because since _when?_

Since when was _Technoblade_ living on the lands of the Dream SMP…?

The giveaway is a grand portrait, spanning nearly floor-to-ceiling —that dramatic motherfucker. Tommy himself had always made a point to tear down any likeness of himself that anyone else tried to put up in, on, or near his house. Because wasn’t having your own face stare back at you like that everyday a bit creepy, innit? Self-pleased at best, but it was hardly as if The Blade was the most humble guy he knew.

_—"Subscribe to Technoblade!" they chant together, grinning and pounding at a large golden bell. It's 10am, but old man Phil should have woken up by now, anyway. He's so old, really. His ears are probably old enough that he won't even hear the two of them ringing the bell and yelling, however early._

Even years later, Tommy still doesn't think he understands what Techno ever meant by 'subscribe'. Or what a 'channel member', or a 'you-tube', actually was.

He’s so startled that he slips on the ice that lines the steps. Just a little, but it's enough for him to catch the door handle with force, and push it open, unimpeded. Apparently, the front door of the most paranoid individuals he knows was left unlocked?

“Pog,” Tommy remarks to no one in particular, as he invites himself in.

Ranboo hasn’t reacted aloud yet, but he just _knows_ that the guy will have already started panicking behind him. He gave off the impression of someone who was spooked easily – definitely not far from the mobs known for their tendency to go batshit the second you caught their eyes. Ranboo seemed a bit awkward with eye-contact, on that subject – what with his eyes darting back and forth and down awkwardly when face-to-face before – but Tommy wasn’t _that_ much of an arsehole as to prod there.

He’s more observant than people give him credit for when they inevitably judge that he chooses to be impolite all the time, rather than just an enjoyable proportion of it.

And so he rambles, half-reassuringly and half because he simply feels the need to puff up his chest and say it with pride:

“He’s a bit like a brother to me, y’know? I haven’t seen ‘im in years since I followed Wilbur here, but way back when, we each ruled our own part of a world – me, Wil an’ Techno – and we met up for brunch every weekend. Did you know that Technoblade likes strawberry donuts? As in, the pink ones, with sprinkles! I think that’s so funny.”

For some reason, everything feels so much lighter than earlier. Tommy gets carried away by the tide of words and memories, until he’s practically glowing, as he chatters about life long before. Before L’Manberg. Before even the Dream SMP itself. A time when wars felt more like family game night than a desperate fight for one’s life, hope and freedom.

“He ‘n Phil once took over the whole world, but they had to give it back the next day after we put them on trial. And it was kinda really funny – not that I would ever tell him that. Their Antarctic Empire was a lot like this place, but more…” he waves his hands vaguely, “Bigger. I bet Techno lives here ‘cause he went all sappy and missed that place! He ‘n Wilby- _Wilbur_ , I mean, haha- have way more in common than they’ll admit. They’re both all sappy and dramatic ‘n shit, which I am not.”

_Ayup, what’s in all these chests?_

“But hasn’t Technoblade been here since—”

Tommy cuts Ranboo off with a crow. “What the hell? He’s loaded!” He pulls out four stacks of gapples just to marvel at the sheer quantity of wealth before him. Notoriously sticky fingers are starting to twitch.

Something clenches in his chest when he stares into the lustre of the gold for too long. They’re hardly the most valuable item here, but he wants to cram every last one into his pockets – or even better, guzzle down the thrum of their warm magic one after another after another, and he can practically _feel_ it in the hollow of his stomach, aching with…

Just one, he reasons. After all, there’s no rational thought behind a base urge to gorge himself sick on gapples.

It wouldn’t even be that funny.

Tommy sinks his teeth in with more urgency than necessary – (it’s not like anyone’s going to take it away from him, right?) – and gasps when he feels a weight lift from his entire being for a single second and no longer. When all the cramps return in equal force a second later, he wants to do it all again.

_Four whole stacks, mmm..._

He’s barely knocked out of giving in to something that makes a little more sense now by Ranboo speaking up, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to take anything…”

Between bites, Tommy grins. “He'll be so shocked by seeing me on the same server that he won't care, and besides, he has looooads!”

Ranboo sighs. “He’s already not so happy with me, and I don’t want to start anything again.”

“… I wasn’t going to take them anyway.” Tommy tells this to himself too, as he dumps the rest back in the chest without much care for order, and closes the lid before anything weird happens again. He does pocket one more for the road, though. With that many, who’s going to notice, let alone care? Spare some charity for the poor man with nothing but lint to line the pockets of ill-fitting borrowed trousers.

At least out of curiosity, he doesn’t let this stop him from digging through the remainder of Techno’s living room storage; like a raccoon, but with moderately more expensive bins.

Tommy’s hands brush against the cold plating of netherite armour at bottom of a chest, and the weird feeling in his stomach returns. He can’t place it exactly, but an impulse to steal it would make even less sense than whatever was up with the gapples. It’s awfully silly, because what would he need that for? No one wears armour in L’Manberg: because it’s supposed to be a safe place, and if it’s for the fact that it's _netherite,_ then he has his own shit back at home in L’Manberg, anyway. And his is better, obviously.

He doesn’t want to linger on the subject for long, though. Especially since the building pressure in his throat (like he’s about to throw up) just vanishes as soon as the chest is closed and the armour is out of his sight.

Besides, something else has already caught his eye.

“Drugs!”

Tommy only chugs _one_ of the instant healing potions left dangling so enticingly from the stand. He throws a glance to Ranboo, but the other is chirruping something incomprehensible to an enderman in a boat, having probably given up on damage control, anyway, so there’s no one in sight to care.

The bandages are tight under his sleeves – sleeves which were so laughably oversized at first that Ranboo had had to straight-up take a sword to somewhere near what might have been the elbow – and he doesn’t want to look like a pussy because he can’t help but twitch at some new unknown injury every time he moves. He’d much rather tell Techno about the fights he remembers, (and that he won!), anyway.

A little belatedly, he realises that there’s something very much missing in his mouth when he goes to pick apple skin out from between his teeth. Even magic-touched golden fruit had the exact same stupid tendency to get stuck like that as its common counterpart.

His braces are just… not there? Gone. Vanished into thin air. His mouth doesn’t even ache with phantom pains for the lack of them, as it might if they had been taken off recently. And they were definitely still there last night, for he remembers Wilbur teasing him about them – calling a child and all.

_What. The fuck?_

Once again, he is asking: _What the actual fuck?_

Some kind of fucked-up shit is going on here, and Tommy decides that he most definitely does not like it, even though he’d be glad to see the braces gone any other day. He prefers to be the one causing problems, rather than the subject of such intention.

It weirds him out enough that he makes a constipated humming sound just so that he physically can’t think about it anymore, and throws himself into poking around at the next nearest item of interest.

Staring into his enderchest, Tommy wonders if he’s going insane. This is the one thing that no one except him could have touched. But eh, he’s hardly going to complain about it being fuller, even if some of it kinda seems like random junk.

Like, a compass? A single emerald? Is this scattering of random objects he can’t place evidence that he’s going crackbrained?

… It’s becoming increasingly easy to brush these things aside and attribute them to whatever he must have forgotten of yesterday.

Fortunately for Tommy, his hands are buried in his own enderchest, rather than someone else’s, when there’s a rattle and a creak behind him and the front door of the cabin swings open.

A familiar deep voice sounds before he even moves to look around. It’s a drawl marked by consonants catching on tusks, and a different brand of confidence to his own:

“Welcome home, Theseus.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, I’m a ‘hurt but no comfort for a while’ writer, so if it ever starts getting better, know that it’s going to get worse faster – and ideally when you least expect it.  
> If you have any thoughts or theories, be sure to let me know in the comments! ;]

**Author's Note:**

> My note-form outline for this fic is 3000 words and I’ve only covered the first 10 lines of it so far, so rest assured that if I ever drop this then I’ll at least leave that for y’all.  
> I want to reiterate that there is canon divergence even before the start of this fic. There will be more, and a lot of personal takes and pretty meta ideas I’m excited to explore.  
> So… stick around? :]


End file.
